White shuts down Wolverines

Without question, undefeated West Henderson has the best team in Henderson County this year. But the best pitcher?

Well, maybe, maybe not.

West's Mitchel Pridmore and Mike Facchinei have taken turns mowing through the competition and grabbing the local headlines, but neither has an earned run average as good as that of Hendersonville's Chris White. And Thursday against Polk County, the junior hurler assured that it will remain a three-horse race when he overpowered the Wolverines on four hits in a complete-game 7-2 victory that kept the Bearcats atop the Southern Foothills Conference.

Except for back-to-back pitches in the fourth inning, White (6-2) was a picture of efficiency as he fearlessly attacked every Polk batter who came to the plate. He struck out nine without walking a batter, using a mix of a good fastball and darting curve to perplex a young Wolverine lineup that included only one senior.

"The best pitcher I've seen is Danny Bard from Charlotte Christian. He's 90-plus every game. But other than that, we haven't faced a pitcher yet that I didn't think Chris couldn't match him toe-to-toe," HHS coach Jerry Smith said. "He's in my opinion one of the best pitchers in Western North Carolina. ... He's a competitor. He really wants to win."

Going into Thursday, Facchinei had a microscopic 0.78 ERA with Pridmore right behind at 0.81, yet they were just three and four on the area's ERA list, with Thursday's starters White and Polk's Jonathan Craddock ranking 1-2 at 0.49 and 0.52, respectively. Only one survived the afternoon anywhere near that, however.

"(White) throws hard, but he hits those spots. He throws the high fastball when he wants to," Polk coach Ty Stott said. "Not as a mistake, but as a want-to to throw it right past you. That's a big difference."

Leif Baker rapped a 1-1 curve ball into center to lead off the fourth for Polk's first hit, and on the very next pitch Jim Ollis smoked a high White fastball over the center field fence that briefly tied the score at 2-2. That was good enough to raise White's ERA to 0.70, but it wasn't close to good enough for the win as Bearcat bats did much more damage to Craddock's numbers.

Chris Zimmerman led off Hendersonville's half of the inning with a double, and White gave himself all the runs he needed with an RBI single. But for good measure the Bearcats broke the game open in the fifth, chasing the sophomore right-hander from the game with three runs.

Stellar defense would have meant no HHS runs in the frame, and good defense would have meant just one. Instead, however, a diving Ollis couldn't hang onto Brooks Kasischke's fly ball to center, resulting in a bloop double, and Craddock let Kasischke go to third by throwing to first on Patrick Brackett's comebacker rather than looking him back.

That brought up Adam Beasley, whose routine fly ball to right was dropped, and HHS didn't need any more charity from that point as Stephen Woody and Zimmerman rapped back-to-back singles followed by Wilkinson's suicide squeeze bunt that plated Woody to make it 6-2.

Brackett set the final tally in the sixth with a sharp two-out single to center that scored Josh Moore, who had led off with another single

HHS first got to Craddock in the second. Zimmerman walked and Wilkinson followed with a single to left center, setting the table for White's RBI single and Josh Miller's sacrifice fly that put the tally at 2-0.

Stott was left in the unenviable position of having to play SFC powers Cherryville and Hendersonville in the same week, and he elected to start Baker, his best pitcher and only senior, earlier in the week.

"I felt like Cherryville was our best chance to win this week and I threw Leif that day. You've got to pick," he said. "I think Hendersonville's the best team in the conference, but Cherryville's not far behind."

HHS improves to 10-5 and 4-0 in the league, while Polk falls to 8-9, 2-3. Despite the loss, the Wolverines played much better than it did in a 13-3 setback at the hands of the Bearcats earlier in the season.

Craddock (1-2) went 41U3 and gave up six runs, four earned, on eight hits. He struck out one and walked three.

Zimmerman was 2-for-2 and White and Brackett were each 2-for-3 to pace HHS's nine-hit attack. The Bearcats travel to Brevard today.

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